Eight years ago, during a particularly bad loss to Alabama, (ask Joe- he was groaning from misery while I was groaning from labor), Rachel Rose entered our lives.  She has added song and dance to every room she enters since then.  She is a joy to us.  Here are a few pictures of her birthday dinner last night.

Rachel loves to cook.  Beck gave us a frog cake pan and Rachel made the cake (marble), then helped me make frosting, and then iced it (adding green M & Ms for warts and one brown one for an eye).   She even placed the candles in it.  It was delicious.

Here is the birthday girl about to blow out her candles.

Rachel  chose “Play with Your Food” a.k.a. “Build Your Dinner” for her birthday meal.  Here is an astronaut on the moon.  On the right (in the distance- play along here) is his space capsule.

A fish.

An ostrich.

A man singing praise songs.

And a water skier.

Last weekend there was a fair at the library that we attended.  Rachel’s Girl Scout troop had a table set up.  The emergency agencies were all present.  There were blow up jumping toys, cake walks, free books, a mini-petting zoo- all kinds of good things!  Here are some of our favorite things.

Benjamin looks like a natural, huh?  He’s really good at it- just ask Lydia. 

There goes Rachel up the ladder of the firetruck.

And Lydia was an integral part of the EMT team.

And don’t forget Firechief Timothy!

Benjamin learned how a stun gun works.  The officer went pretty easy on him, though, since it was his first offense. 

And Timothy kept an eye on the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow fireman…

We have badly neglected the blog and are hopelessly behind in sharing what’s been going on.  I’m going to attempt to remedy that by at least posting pictures over the next few days so that the grandparents can see what their dear ones have been up to lately.  Here are a few shots from Timothy’s recent birthday.

This was while we were singing to him.

Rachel holds Timothy and gives him a lesson in present-opening.

While we were on a recent Homeschool Field Trip, a friend of ours took these pictures. She’s obviously very talented.

We didn’t even know she was taking our picture at the time.

Benjamin got up this morning and cooked a birthday breakfast of French Toast for us. Here’s a picture of Chef Benjamin. 

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Lake Guntersville, Alabama, for our annual summer vacation. The whole extended family went, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, Grams and BePops. We had a great time!

Uncle Chris brought his boat and we got to cruise up and down the lake site seeing.

If we got hot, we simply stopped and took a swim.

Benjamin, Rachel, and I tried knee boarding for the first time. Benjamin and Rachel popped up like it was old hat. I, well, I eventually got up after 1/2 tank of gas trying.

Lydia took it well that she wasn’t quite big enough to try the knee board. But she wasn’t really dissuaded from pretending.

The rocking of the boat eventually was too much for her, though and most every ride ended in nap.

Timothy wasn’t quite big enough to go boat riding, but he certainly enjoyed the resort’s swimming pool.

We had a great time!

Lydia decided to “read” Timothy a book this evening after church. Timothy found it hilarious.